Move For Change

For me I have never been afraid to open up about my battles with mental health, I was very fortunate to have an incredible support network and to some this might sound crazy, but I am happy that I faced those demons and won those battles, I learned a lot about myself and in doing so I re-found my purpose.

Move For Change was born with the intent to get people to start a conversation about mental health, and learning the importance the conversation. Most importantly knowing that it is okay to talk and its okay to ask for help. A great friend of mine Harvey from Positive Outlook Clothing, who with his own brand of clothing is constantly spreading positive messages of hope and courage wanted to get on board with Move For Change.

Move For Change is still very much in its early stages and there is a whole load of ideas on paper ready to be actioned, but we have already had a great success with our first 5k fun run we organised back in April’17, our aim for this run was to raise money and awareness for two great mental health charities, MIND & To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA).

MIND provide advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. They campaign to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding.

To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.

I feel I am in a really fortunate position at JPF Sports Therapy, I get to meet a lot of people from all different walks of life and backgrounds, who feel comfortable and happy to open up about their struggles, and it was a big reason behind the inspiration of Move For Change. I get a real sense of people wanting to make changes, to make a difference, whether it be a change in their own life or to someone else’s. By us all coming together it sounds very cliché but it really is strength in numbers and its that strength that can create hope, that inspires courage, and that can be the difference.

This is only the beginning of our journey, and we hope we can go from strength to strength. Currently our focus is on mental health and we feel like this is the time to talk up about it, but our mission is to create change as a whole, whether its mental health, fighting other illness and disease, helping the homeless, the list really can go on. We want to make a change and we want to do it together through movement and community. Watch this space as we hope to action our ideas from paper to reality.

I would like to personally say a huge thank you to everyone who has helped out already with our event, and to those of you who donated, who came along and got involved, and to anyone who even just spoke about the event and what its about. This is the sort of conversation we want to create so thank you.